At Big Bad Con 2022, I subbed in (along with Shao Han) on a panel called Speak Loudly, Ready Your Blade: A Politics of Violence in TTRPGs as Sam wasn’t able to make it.
It’s been more than a couple weeks since then, so I’ve forgotten a lot of the details of the panel, but I figure it might still be useful for me to collect some of the things that I discussed at the panel. I’ll be mainly covering my own perspective, since that’s the part I’m most confident in remembering and not misrepresenting. Pam and Shao Han had really, really great thoughts on the topic as well though not sure if they have shared anything publicly on this specific panel. Regardless, they have thought about this topic a lot more than I have, so I’d encourage following them on social media since they do share their thoughts on games and violence there too.
OK so at a high level, the three big questions we tried to address on the panel are:
- What do we mean when we say “violence” in our games?
- Why is violence or acts of violence seen as an integral part of a gaming experience?
- How is violence a tool for a colonized body?
Below are the raw, rough notes that I made in preparation of the panel, corresponding to each of the big questions:
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A denial of personhood, a reduction of complexity, in the end you are meat and materials,
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A reminder of materials, that every move you make in the world destroys and creates, a reminder of relationships, that violence threatens them
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Violence is a relationship to the world, a corporation is a mech
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Colonized bodies have a relationship to violence defined, where violence can be deemed not violence by those it serves, there’s violence and then there’s Violence, to see it and say it for what it is is the practice of reclaiming violence but risks enshrining and reproducing it, to break cycles another violence is required, the violence of loss and peace of killing the self that sees the past
Pam and Sam already had a bunch more notes in the planning document already, so I had more than the above to work off, but this was the gist of what I personally wanted to add to the discussion.
I’ll get into a bit more detail on what I meant by the above notes, and some other stuff that came up in the back and forth during the panel.
What do we mean when we say “violence” in our games?
I wanted to talk at a high level about how many games, including tabletop RPGs, operate by simplifying and/or abstracting complex realities into “playable” systems.
There’s a strain of tabletop design that loves working out how to represent things “accurately” within a “playable” model – the simulationist drive, so to speak. This drive often lays hands on the tools of reduction, simplification, categorization and definition. The tools of control, of empire, of systemic violence.
When we talk about “violence” in our games, I want to make sure that we aren’t just talking about “I swing my sword” or “I make gun go shoot”; that we acknowledged that violence comes at the end of a pen and an unthinking dismissal as easily as the tip of a blade. That one of the key fantasies of violence, how violence “solves” problems, is the fantasy of reduction. That the move to reduce complex problems into simple solved states is a type of violence. That the move to define and categorize people and places and histories is violence that reduces them to less than they fully are.
I wanted to reflect on how the act of designing and engaging in tabletop RPGs in ways that simplify so much in the pursuit of “fun” and “playability” is a kind of violent act as well. I’d also clarify here that this isn’t a “bad thing”. Violence can also be a transformative, generative act. To create and define what “is”, separate from what “isn’t”. To clear away old preconceptions and gain new perspectives is also a violent act, a new world struggling (violently) to be born etc. etc. This is perhaps an overly broad definition of violence, but I think it is a useful lens to have.
To summarize, when I talk about “violence” in games, I don’t just want to talk about physical violence, but violence in its various incarnations, including in the act of design and play.
Why is violence or acts of violence seen as an integral part of a gaming experience?
See above haha. In trying to get to my definition of violence, I think I address this second question as well. I think violence is built into the idea of games themselves, in the reduction and also in the transformation and creation. Also it surrounds us, we live and breath different forms of violence every single moment, so there’s no escaping it even in the world of make-believe.
One question that came up related to this was how we could design games or experiences that avoid or de-center violence? My shitpost-y answer then was to “not make games”. I think it’s really, really difficult to avoid violence completely in games, or at least in the tabletop RPG context of games that we find ourselves in. Often we replace overt, physical violence with the violence of peace. The social violence of coercion, manipulation, and suppression via honeyed words and meaningful silences. The violence of systems and absences.
We talked about what the antithesis of violence was. I offered the suggestion of “curiosity”, which someone in the room pointed out rightly could also lead down the road to capture, collection and appropriation as well, another path to violence. Others suggested “empathy”, which I think is a better frame to working against the gravity of violence. Out of this discussion, my slightly more practical updated answer to how to de-center violence in games was to “make toys”. To try to make things that would pique curiosity and empathy, the kind of imaginative joy that toys elicit. I don’t think it’s a be-all-end-all answer, but I think it’s a fun start on that path.
To summarize, violence is an integral part of the human experience, so it makes its way into our human endeavours, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
How is violence a tool for a colonized body?
I do love the power of incredible violence. I think in all this discussion, the thing I keep coming back to is how ubiquitous violence is, and how it isn’t just one thing. Violence isn’t always “bad”, and whenever violence is framed that way, the next question should always be “bad for who, and benefitting who”. Violence can be as much a liberating act as it is an oppressive one, a tool that can be turned. However, to use a tool effectively, one should understand how it works and how it is used. Not only so you can better wield it, but to always be cognizant of when and how it is being deployed against you, even when it doesn’t seem like it. This is like the most basic, pat shit, but hey I don’t claim to have any new or incredible insight here as I struggle to deal with how to see and use violence as well.
To summarize, it's an incredible tool, but I'm always wary of so-called liberators whose only real problem with the state of affairs is who gets to be on top.
This, uh, got long. I’ll leave it there for now, and hopefully this was useful enough to think about how violence and games interact.
